“No, I don’t.”
“Well, you should,” she said, shaking her head in disgust at his lack of imagination. “My hands fucking glow while I’m feeding on people. I’m not making this shit up. Why would I?”
“So why don’t you show me?”
“What?” She seemed as shocked as Andre felt.
He had no idea why he’d thrown out the challenge. Did he want to prove to Emma that she wasn’t the freak she thought she was, or did he just want to know what it felt like to have her hands on him? He couldn’t answer the question, which should have made him get up and leave. But it didn’t. He stayed, meeting her eyes, watching her lips part in surprise as she struggled to understand what he was asking.
“Show me the glowing hands,” he said. “Suck my bad deeds.”
Wow. That had come out sounding filthy. Thankfully, Emma didn’t seem to notice.
“Are you nuts? Haven’t you been listening to a thing I’ve said? I might have killed a man tonight because I took too much from him, and you—”
“Then just suck a little bit.”
Still filthy sounding, absolutely filthy. And what’s worse, Andre sort of liked it. He had to fight the grin teasing at the corners of his mouth, knowing Emma would probably strangle him if she caught him laughing at her.
“It will still hurt you. That’s why I only take from bad people, dumb-ass,” she said, her casual name-calling increasing his urge to laugh at her. Her toughness was strangely ... cute, though he knew telling her that would be a good way to end up on her shit list. “I usually stop before I kill anyone, but what I do still shortens people’s lives. I know that for a fact. They all die of heart attacks a few months, or maybe a few years, later. I’ve been doing this long enough to—”
“Then just take a teeny, tiny bit,” Andre said. “I don’t mind giving you a year or two in the name of separating fact from fiction.”
She shook her head, the genuine concern in her eyes sending a sliver of doubt into Andre’s assurance that she was nuts. She might be crazy, but she was so sure of herself ... positive that she hurt people. How could she have become so sure of something without some sort of evidence?
The part of him that missed the danger of being a bounty hunter, that still craved the high of pushing life’s boundaries, thrilled at the possibility that he was playing with something truly dangerous.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said. “You still think I’m crazy.”
“I do. I really do. I think you’re a crazy little girl with dirty fingernails,” Andre said, throwing the words down on the table between them, an open challenge. “Now ... don’t you want to suck my life force? Just a little?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay, then how about this ... ?” The noble part of him screamed for him to shut his mouth, but the ignoble part of him won out. It usually did. “I won’t help you get rid of the body unless you show me what you can do.”
“The dead guy’s friends saw him go outside with me,” she said. “This isn’t a game. They’ll think I know something about his death. I’ll have the Death Ministry all over me. They could kill me, and they’ll know that I have connections to the Contis; they’ll know—”
“Then I guess there’s a lot riding on you proving yourself to me, isn’t there?” he asked, hating himself for pushing her but unable to stop this ball now that it was rolling. He was just so curious about her. ...
“Fine,” she said, forcing the word out through gritted teeth. “But not in here.” Emma stood and headed toward the door. Andre followed, doing his best not to notice the way her ass filled out her jeans, and failing miserably.
Finally, he gave up on nobility and let his eyes roam over Em-ma’s subtle but undeniably sexy curves. Sometime in the past half hour, she had transformed from a scruffy girl to an attractive young woman in his eyes, and there was no way he couldn’t notice her in a sexual way. That didn’t mean he was going to treat her any differently, however. She was still family and a great deal younger than he was, not to mention his cousin’s kid sister by marriage. Sleeping with Emma would be a very dumb idea, even if she was interested in a purely physical relationship.
Which she certainly wasn’t. She still thought he was an annoying jerk of a pansy-ass lawyer.
Her disdain was clear in her swift, irritated stride, in the way her ass twitched from side to side as if even her bottom were frustrated with his stupidity. When she finally stopped—stepping into the deep shadows of a recessed doorway a half block from the coffee shop—her eyes flashed, and her slim body practically vibrated with anger. It was enough to make him pause, uncertain whether to follow her into the shadows. The rational part of him knew there was nothing to fear, but another part of him warned that a predator lurked nearby, ready to take what it needed from him, the weaker, more vulnerable creature.
“Well, come on, Andre. No second thoughts now.” Emma reached for him, burying her fingers in his hair, pulling him close, until his forehead rested on hers and her peppermint-gum-scented breath teased at his nose.
His arms went around her instinctively, and apprehension fled in a wave of desire. She was all muscle with only the slightest bit of softness, but she felt good pressed up against him. More than good. She felt ... perfect, better than any woman in years, better than anyone he’d ever had.
Except for one other.
Andre regretted the thought immediately, as the memories descended like carrion-eating birds, picking away at all the time and emotional distance he’d put between himself and thoughts of her. Katie. The only woman he’d ever loved, the one it had nearly killed him to lose.
CHAPTER FOUR
Andre was warm and solid against her, his arms comforting and disquieting at the same time.
Even as she dove deep into his mind—searching through the day-to-day images, hunting for memories that would make him a man worth stealing from—she couldn’t help but notice how close his face was to hers, how his breath whispered across her lips. She fit perfectly against him, each curve finding a strong hollow, as if she was made to fill in all his missing pieces.
Shivers of awareness sizzled across her skin, making her ache in a way that was entirely new and a little ... terrifying. She’d felt ghosts of this feeling before—with the one boy at the group home who she’d called her “boyfriend” for a few months—but never anything so strong. Nothing that made her nipples grow tight and sensitive against her shirt or made that quiet place between her legs wake up and celebrate the fact that a very good-looking man was very close.
This was what other people must feel when they rubbed against an attractive member of the opposite sex; this was the reason people hunted desirable partners to grind against in those darkened clubs. This was desire; this was ... lust.
She was lusting after Andre.
The realization was nauseating. The man was contemptible in every way—from his excessive spending to his compulsive tidiness to his careless use of women to his smug assuredness that there was nothing in the great wide world that he might not completely understand. Even the way he smelled—of strong soap and heady cologne—had always made her cringe.
But for some reason, he smelled different now. What had made her head ache now made it spin, the spicy scent calling to a hunger entirely separate from the dark craving that surged to the surface as soon as her fingertips found the pressure points just above Andre’s neck.
This hunger was base, instinctive, the hunger of a woman for a man.
Oh yeah, this was lust—no two ways about it—and it was ... overwhelming. Her heart beat faster, and her hands yearned to roam across every inch of Andre, to intimately learn the body hiding beneath his designer suit. The lure of that undiscovered flesh was so strong that it took several long minutes for her mind to get past the unfamiliar need coursing through her veins and focus on the business at hand.
Andre’s memories were practically slapping her in the face by the time she homed in on the source of
the pain flowing in through her fingertips.
She saw a woman, a beautiful woman, but different from all the other beautiful women Andre had taken to his bed. This one was special. Emma watched Andre brush the woman’s bright red hair behind her ear, saw the way she laughed, the way she smiled with tears in her eyes when Andre slipped a ring on her left ring finger.
A fiancée. Jace had never mentioned that Andre had been engaged. It made Emma wonder what had—
Before the question in her mind could fully form, Emma had her answer. The memories flew at her, faster and faster. The redhead, huddled in a corner, sick and wasted from demon drugs, Andre screaming at her, the woman crying, begging him to stay. But he doesn’t, he can’t, he can’t keep watching her ruin herself. She’s crawling across the floor on her belly when he slams out of the small apartment, leaving her there ... leaving her there to die.
He never saw her again. She died, but it wasn’t his fault. It was the drugs, the demon high she couldn’t quit chasing once she’d had her first taste. Still, Andre blamed himself. For days, months, years ... The grief Emma sensed in his memories was overwhelming. Even as he flirted and teased and seduced, the pain was there, the loss a wound that would never, ever heal.
Emma slid her trembling hands down to Andre’s shoulders, severing her connection to his memories. She’d found nothing there worth taking. Bribing judges and aiding tax evasion were hardly punishable sins in her book, nothing compared to killing people; that was for damned sure.
And the pain that was so fresh in his memories ... it had gotten to her ... made her see Andre in a way she’d never dreamed she could, made her want to help him, to comfort him, to connect with the man who had lost someone he loved so deeply. That love intrigued her. She’d seen a lot of hate in the memories she’d sifted through over the years, but not much love, and nothing so ... intense.
“Emma, I—”
His whisper ended in a moan as Emma pressed her lips to his, grateful that she’d taken the time to wash the taste of the Death Ministry thug out of her mouth before she left the pub. She wouldn’t have wanted another man to color the flavor of this kiss. This perfect kiss.
Andre’s lips moved against hers, taking the comfort she offered, devouring her with a naked hunger that drew an answering moan from Emma’s throat. His arms tightened at her waist, pulling her closer. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight, clinging to him as their tongues met with sweet, seductive strokes that made her ache all over.
This was so completely different from the invasion of Blue Eyes’ kiss, from any kiss she’d ever known. This was a communion, a mutual exploration, a challenge neither of them was backing away from. With every passing second, Andre’s kiss made her hotter, higher, bolder, until her hands were roaming down his broad back and up under his suit jacket, wanting to get closer to his warmth.
Her fingers clawed into the thick muscles of his shoulders, wishing the soft cotton of his shirt would vanish, wishing that she could be skin to skin with this man who made her body respond in a way no one ever had. There was no fear, no anxiety, only need, more than she knew what to do with. Not even the dark craving could compete with the desire flooding her every cell. The demon-created hunger faded into the background, a thread of smoke dwarfed by the fire that had sparked to life inside her.
She’d never understood, but now ... she got it. She finally got it, and she wanted it, wanted him.
When Andre’s hands cupped twin handfuls of her ass and pulled her close, pressing her against where he was obviously aroused, she didn’t pull away. Instead, she tilted her hips forward, grinding against him. Damn. It was ... unbelievable. He felt so good. So very, very good.
She was going to have to take back every critical thing she’d ever thought about the girls who made their dance partners into stripper poles at the Demon’s Breath. She wanted to do a lot more than dance with Andre, and she didn’t care if it happened right here. Right now.
Growing bolder, Emma smoothed her hands down to his waist, then around to the close of his belt.
“Wait.” Andre broke off the kiss with a suddenness that left Emma gasping. He grabbed her fingers and removed them from his belt, then transferred his hands to her shoulders. “We shouldn’t do this,” he said, though his breath was coming as fast as hers and the look in his eyes left little doubt that he wanted to pick up where they’d left off. She’d seen that look in men’s eyes plenty of times before, though she’d never been as pleased by it as she was at this moment.
“No, we shouldn’t.” Emma smiled. “But we could.”
“You’re nineteen.”
“I’m twenty.”
“I’m still eleven years older.”
Emma laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “If that’s your only concern, you can relax. I’m not a child. I’m not anywhere close to being a child. I never have been.”
She stared into his dark eyes, willing him to see that she was telling the truth. She’d never known what it was like to trust anyone or anything—even herself. It had shaped her, aged her well beyond her two decades. There was no need for him to consider her some kid in need of protection from his big, bad self.
When it came right down to it, she was way bigger and badder than he’d ever be.
“I know you’ve had ... a difficult time.”
“That’s one way to put it.”
“But I still have a lot more experience.” Andre’s hands slid down her arms, sending shivers across her skin. She still wanted him so much, so much that it hurt to watch his face harden with the resolve to put a stop to what they’d barely started.
“I doubt it,” she said. She’d seen things, lived through things, done things that Andre couldn’t even fathom. He was an infant in the world of pain and suffering and supernatural terror. So he’d slept with dozens of women and she hadn’t slept with ... anyone. So what?
Sex was just sex. It was like eating. It fed a basic human drive—the need to reproduce and replenish the species. Just because Andre had screwed around with more than his fair share of women didn’t make him worthy of her respect, or better than her, or above her in any way. His excuse was ridiculous and thin and maybe just a flat-out lie.
Maybe he didn’t want to sleep with her because he thought she was an ugly, gangly girl with nearly nonexistent breasts, stringy hair, and dirty fingernails. Maybe she repulsed him. Maybe he’d kissed her only because he would kiss just about anything female that rubbed up against him.
She’d seen other hidden truths in Andre’s memories. She’d seen the way he’d changed after his fiancée’s death, watched his womanizing morph into a flat-out addiction that, in many ways, ruled his life. A part of Andre was always thinking about where to score his next fix, wondering where he’d find the next willing, suitable partner, worrying that he’d eventually resort to hiring prostitutes.
Knowing he was a certified man-slut with a monkey on his back should have turned Emma off, but it didn’t. She knew what it felt like to need something she didn’t want to need, to prowl the streets looking for someone suitable to scratch the itch that made her skin feel too small and the hunger too large. She knew how scary it was to worry that someday the hunger would rule her completely.
For her, that day might be closer than she had suspected.
A man was dead, and she’d blacked out for an hour after feeding on his energy. What did that mean? And why did she still feel so ... off? She hadn’t been able to take a single sip of her coffee back at the diner. Just the smell of it had made her stomach heave and pitch. And now that the rush of kissing Andre was behind her, she felt sick again. And dizzy. And ... wrong.
“It’s been a long night. I need to go home,” Emma said, pulling away from Andre’s lingering touch.
“So we aren’t going to finish this?” Andre actually blushed when she glanced up at him in surprise. “I mean the life-force-sucking thing. I didn’t see any blue light. Did you—”
“That’s because I didn’t do it.
” She crossed her arms. “I couldn’t find anything in your memories that made you worth stealing from.”
“You saw my memories? Like ... inside my mind?”
“I did. You’re not such a bad guy, after all,” Emma said, though it was obvious Andre didn’t believe in her power any more than he had ten minutes ago. “So there’s not going to be any blue light. I guess that means there’s not going to be any help.”
Andre adjusted his collar, looking embarrassed. “No, of course I’ll help. I’ll make a few phone calls, and the body will be gone within the hour.”
“Are you going to call your uncle? Is he going to be angry that I—”
“Don’t worry about my uncle. I’ll take care of it. No one’s going to be angry with you.” His warm hands came down on her shoulders once more, but this time the touch was purely friendly. “Trust me.”
Emma nodded, ignoring the sparks of awareness even his casual touch inspired. “I do.”
Andre smiled, that sarcastic twist of his lips she’d seen a hundred times before but never found half as sexy as she did now. “Because you read my mind?”
“Yes.” Frowning, she shrugged his hands off her shoulders.
“Okay, okay.” Andre held up his hands in mock surrender, his face a study in amused disbelief. “If you say you did ... you did. I wouldn’t think reading my mind would make anyone trust me, but—”
“I don’t care about the illegal shit,” Emma said. “I always figured you cooked the books for the Conti family, and what do I care if you have a judge or two in your pocket?”
“Oh, come on, is that the best you’ve got?” The bastard actually had the balls to laugh, like this was all some kind of joke. “You’re going to have to give me more than that if you expect me to—”
“I was prepared to give you more.” Emma stepped closer, until her lips were only a few inches from Andre’s. He was close to six feet, but in her heeled boots their faces were nearly level. The slightest movement on either of their parts would bring them back into intimate contact. The sizzle of attraction arced between them once more. She could tell he felt it, too, see it in the way his smile faded and his breath picked up speed. But was that because he was attracted to her or because he’d do anything with a pussy?
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